"Fern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only one species of palm, Chamaerops martiana, Wall. ('Plantae Asiat.', lib. iii., p. 5,211), which is found at the height of 5250 English feet above the level of the sea, in the shady valley of Bunipa. The magnificent tree-fern, Alsophila brunoniana, Wall. (of which a stem 48 feet long has been in the possession of the British Museum since 1831), does not grow in Nepaul, but is found on the mountains of Silhet, to the northwest of Calcutta, in lat. 24 degrees 50 minutes. The Nepaul fern, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... heathery wastes of Exmoor, the wind-swept cliffs and highlands, the fair and luxuriant valleys where the pure bright waters of these hill-fed streams flow through a green tunnel of overarching trees, making a fertile paradise of flower and fern in their course. And the magnificent bold rocks and forelands of the coast, the streams broken into feathery spray falling down the precipitous face of the cliffs, creek and gully and cave, the wave-washed golden sands of the bays, or the line of foam fretting ever at the foot of these granite ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... provide for the future beauty of your lawn or roadside, plant at least a few trees of the new Stabler Black Walnut. Its luxuriant fern-like foliage and its weeping twigs make it unique among shade trees—its thin-shelled nuts and heavy bearing habit put it at the top of the list as a nut producer. The only black walnut that yields a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... on our door-steps. He had a haunch of elk-meat on his back, one end resting on his head, with a cushion of green fern-leaves. He called me "Closhe tum-tum" (Good Heart), and gave me a great ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... from under the thick leafage of a hazel hedge, or at the sight of a family of rabbits scurrying over the cropped woodland grass at the sound of his horse's feet, their short white tails marking their leaps as they dart from one fern shelter to the other; and to slacken his horse's pace as he rides past village greens, marking how the little children tumble ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wants to have her regular nap," she told them. "Frances, take Mrs. Kennedy to the fern walk and show her the famous 'Newbury Bubble' among the rocks. I want to be rid of you ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the ground among the fern, but the prince picked it up, and, unfastening the strap, took out his second flask of wine and another loaf of bread. 'We will have supper together,' he remarked politely; but the bear, who had never been taught manners, made no reply, and ate as fast as ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... laugh. She was not much given to laughter. Her life had been singularly monotonous and, having seen very little of the world, she had that self-distrust which is afraid to laugh unless other people are laughing, too. She taught singing at Fern Hill, a private school in Mercer's suburbs. She did not care for the older pupils, but she was devoted to the very little girls. She played wonderfully on the piano, and suffered from indigestion; her face ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... customary 3 Carnations and 1 Maiden-Hair Fern gracing the center of the Board, the terrified Guests saw a Wagon-Load of tropical Bloom which pleased them very much as soon as each had secreted a new kind of Cocktail, served in a Goblet, with a Stick of Dynamite substituted ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... amalgama tears it from the intestine by mechanical pressure, acting upon it the whole way. Electric shocks through the duodenum greatly assists the operation. Large doses of tin in powder. Iron filings in large doses. The powder of fern-root seems to be of no use, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... A rippling breeze usually wimples and dimples its laughing surface, but in calmer moods it reflects, as in a polished mirror, the lofty, overhanging mountains, with every stately pine, bounding rivulet; blossoming shrub, waving fern, and—high above all, on the right—the clinging, thread-like line of the snow-sheds of the Central Pacific. When the railroad was being constructed, three thousand people dwelt on its shores; the surrounding ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... months something further happens; little ferns begin to grow and they live a very long time indeed. There is at Rothamsted a bottle of soil that was put up just like this as far back as 1874. For a number of years past a beautiful fern has been growing inside the bottle, and even now it is very healthy and vigorous. If, instead of being kept moist, the rich garden soil is left in a dry shed during the whole of the winter so that it gradually loses its moisture, it will generally ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... the act of kicking out a dung fire. Rajah headed directly toward them, the fire evidently being in the line of path he had chosen. This rare and unexpected freedom, this opportunity to go whither he listed, was as the giant fern he used to eat in the days when he was ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... fern-house, which is just beyond here," she said. "We have got such exquisite maidenhairs and such a splendid Killarney fern. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the old pasture, which was overgrown with buckbushes and sassafras sprouts, which were turning into great pink and green fern clumps in the warm April sunshine, I gave the two or three Saint-Saens Delilah notes which had been robbed of any of their wicked Delilah flavor for me by having heard Mr. G. Bird sing them so beautifully on the stage of the Metropolitan in that first dream night in Elmnest. But ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a more beautiful and instructive example of this play of molecular force than that furnished by water. You have seen the exquisite fern-like forms produced by the crystallization of a film of water on a cold window-pane.[15] You have also probably noticed the beautiful rosettes tied together by the crystallizing force during the descent ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... her, and stole about the edges of the camp and the wood. She knew that if any wandering man came by, he would not stay long where such a figure was walking. The night was cool, the dew lay on the deep fern; there was a sweet smell from the grass ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang
... daily experience of the pupil. The background of country life is nature; therefore nature study is fundamental in the new curriculum. Careful observation of natural objects comes first, until the child is able to identify bird and bee and flower. To knowledge is added appreciation. The beauty of fern and leaf, of brookside and hillside, of star-dotted and cloud-dappled sky, is not appreciated by mere observation, but waits on the education of the mind. This is part of the task of the teacher. The economic use of natural objects and natural forces is secondary, and should ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... above an impenetrable growth which, the guides tell us, is the home of tigers, rhinoceroses, panthers, bears, wild hogs, buffaloes, deer and all sorts of beasts, and snakes as big around as a barrel. Fern trees are lovely, and are found here in their greatest glory, but nevertheless we have foliage at home, and they are no more beautiful than our elms, oaks, and other ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... were daily and nightly committed. Damage was also received from the little stock which remained alive; the owners, not having wherewith to feed them, were obliged to turn them loose to browse among the grass and shrubs, or turn up the ground for the fern-root; and as they wandered without any one to prevent their doing mischief, they but too often found an easy passage over fences and through barriers which were now grown weak and perishing. It was ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... about 3 ft. high, but in its native woods its stems are many feet long, and pendulous from the branches of trees. It may be grown in a warm house, in a pot, and its branches supported by a stake; or its lower stems may be fastened against a piece of soft fern-stem, into which its numerous stem-roots penetrate freely. In the winter it should be kept almost dry. The flowers remain fresh for several days, and are fragrant. A well-grown plant, when in flower, is an interesting ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... Palaeolithic, or Primary Epoch, constitutes the Age of Fishes and Fern Forests, and is made up of the ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... A wheen fern and horse little that I fired in the courtyard, after sending back the loon of a footman; and, to speak Heaven's truth, the next time that ye send or bring ony body here, let them ge gentles allenarly, without ony fremd servants, like that chield Lockhard, to be gledging ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... disappeared. At that moment there seemed to rise before me, sporting among the gnarled branches of the old thorn-trees, the graceful form of Mary Stanley, followed by old Sergeant, bounding and barking through the fern; and the General looking on from a distance, pretending to be angry, and desiring her to come out of the covert and not disturb the game. Exactly thus, and there, I beheld them for the first time. What would I not give ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... new Of purple hue Inside the border of bright thin grass: For all that has Been left by November of leaves is torn From hazel and thorn And the greater trees. Throughout the copse No dead leaf drops On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern, At the wind's return: The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed Are thinly spread In the road, like little black fish, inlaid, As if they played. What hangs from the myriad branches down there So hard and bare Is twelve yellow apples lovely to ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... mushrooms any more, but we gathered gay red berries for decoration, bunches of late fern, sprays of bittersweet; we raked over the leaves for nuts, and sometimes found bits of spicy wintergreen or checkerberry, the kind that always flavored old-fashioned lozenges which our grandmothers bought in little rolls for a penny, on the way to school. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Another of his cures for the same malady is a wreath of fleabane placed on the head, but it must not touch the earth.[44] On the same condition a decoction of the root of elecampane in wine kills worms; a fern, found growing on a tree, relieves the stomach-ache; and the pastern-bone of a hare is an infallible remedy for colic, provided, first, it be found in the dung of a wolf, second, that it docs not touch the ground, and, third, that it is not touched by a woman.[45] Another cure for colic is effected ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... stigma of mauvais ton, and establish our fair name in opposition to the mal-impressions which have gained currency respecting the Australian colonists, I have been induced to add another to the tales of Australian life, and to lay "Fern ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... into the house, and laid me down on the lit de fouaille—a wooden frame forming a sort of couch, and filled with dried fern, which forms the principal piece of furniture in every farm-house kitchen in the Channel Islands. Then he cut away the boot from my swollen ankle, with a steady but careful touch, speaking now and then a word of encouragement, as if I were a child whom ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... place, where there was room but for one vehicle to pass at a time, and seeing a bunch of wild fern, Cora got out of the car to gather some. As she did so she heard a girl's voice pleading ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... avoid every occasion of its mention,—if, when you speak, she drops into silence and changes the subject,—why, look there for something! just as, when going through deep meadow-grass, a bird flies ostentatiously up before you, you may know her nest is not there, but far off, under distant tufts of fern and buttercup, through which she has crept with a silent flutter in her spotted breast, to act her pretty little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... extent of the island run many little streams, sometimes between high banks of rock, covered with moss and magnificent fern, with great pools of clear, deep water at the base of high waterfalls, and in those places where the stream cuts its way through the level plains double rows of the royal palm mark its course. The royal palm is the characteristic ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... under the crowding alders, gathered a big bunch of the purple flag lilies with their silky petals, and started homeward, whistling cheerily as he stepped briskly along the fern-carpeted wood path that wound up the hill ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... slept. The silence was absolute, the forest's unconscious tribute to the Wonder Worker. Even the trout brook, running black as night among its white-capped boulders and delicate arches of frost and fern work, between massive banks of feathery white and green, had stopped its idle chatter and tinkled a low bell under the ice, as if only the Angelus could express ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... now by the abundant rains which had made an end of weeks of drought, ran, noisily full, between two steep banks of mossy crag. From the crag, oaks hung over the water, at fantastic angles, holding on, as it seemed, by one foot and springing from the rock itself; while delicate rock plants, and fern fringed every ledge down to the water. A seat on the twisted roots of an overhanging oak, from which, to either side, a little green path, as though marked for pacing, ran along the stream, was one of her favourite haunts. From up-stream a mountain ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the pretty table with appreciative eyes. In the centre a bowl of pink roses reflected in its shining facets the lights of the pink candies which filled the candelabra at the ends of the table. Broad, pink satin ribbons, with rosebuds and maidenhair fern dropped upon them at intervals, ran from the flower bowl in the centre to the comers of the polished table, and in front of papa's plate was a huge birthday cake resplendent with pink and white icing ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... Tarn to the gorge where the river took its rise. Here a stream of considerable force thundered along between high walls of rock. It was a picturesque spot; rowan-trees hung from clefts in the crags, their bright berries rivalling the scarlet of the hips and haws; green fronds of fern bent at the water's edge, and brilliant carpets of moss clothed the boulders. At one point a great tree-trunk, a giant of the fells, rotten through many years of braving the strong west wind, had fallen and lay across the torrent. It stretched from bank to bank ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... both were brought to full accord, She rose, and set before him all he will'd; And after these had comforted the blood With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts— Now talking of their woodland paradise, The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns; Now mocking at the much ungainliness, And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark— Then Tristram laughing caught ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... like an obscene nightingale beneath wet leaves. Children ran across the road. Here and there one could see brown panelling inside the hall door.... The march that the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough. Now distracted by brown panelling; now by a fern in a pot; here improvising a few phrases to dance with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other (so outright, so lusty)—yet all ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... half past one, under a strong blue sky, Turnbull got up out of the grass and fern in which he had been lying, and his still intermittent laughter ended ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... longer doubted any of those wild tales of glamour concerning Goliath's Land; and for though the rocks were the same, and though the conies still stood gazing at the doors of their dwellings, though the hawks still cried out shrilly, though the fern still shook in the wind, yet beyond, oh such a land! not to be described by any because of its great beauty, lying, a great hollow land, the rocks going down on this side in precipices, then reaches and reaches of loveliest country, trees and ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... so they sat through a long silence. At last he heard Edith draw a quick breath, and lifting his head he looked where she pointed. Up a fern stalk climbed a curious looking object. They watched breathlessly. By lavender feet clung a big, pursy, lavender-splotched, yellow body. Yellow and lavender wings began to expand and take on colour. Every instant great beauty became more apparent. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... seamanship to bear the motion of a Quantuck box cart; it requires still better seamanship to navigate one of them along the rutted roads. For some time, it took all of Dr. McAlister's energy to keep from landing himself and Allyn head foremost in the thickets of sweet fern and beach plum. By degrees, however, he became more expert in avoiding pitfalls and in keeping both wheels in the ruts, and he turned ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... but 2-cleft, thus appearing to be twice as many. Scape: 4 to 10 in. high. Leaves: Growing in an open rosette on the ground; round or broader, clothed with reddish bristly hairs tipped with purple glands, and narrowed into long, flat, hairy petioles; young leaves curled like fern fronds. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... in the lower lands at the western end of the valley, the dainty rose gerardia, just now coming into bloom; the pretty Polygala polygama,—pretty, but not in the same class with the rose gerardia; ladies' tresses; bayberry; sweet fern; crisp-leaved tansy; beach grass; huckleberry bushes, for whose liberality I had frequent occasion to be thankful; bear oak; chinquapin; chokeberry; a single vine of the Virginia creeper; wild carrot; wild cherry; the common brake,—these and doubtless many more were there, for I made no attempt ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... coming to colonize some new and virgin land, until now utterly unknown to the rest of the world. The shores we have passed along have presented to us every possible variety of savage wilderness, rocks and bush and scrub and fern, but no appearance of settlement at all, not even any signs of aboriginal life have ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... oil at bed time. Two hours after breakfast next morning give one-half dram of the oleoresin of male-fern in emulsion or capsule. Very light nourishment should be taken during the day, composed of gruels and soups. When the worm is passed it should be examined to find if the head is present; if not, the treatment should be ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... of the Flowering Fern (Osmunda regalis), Mr. Newman observes, that "the rhizoma [root-stock], when cut through, has a whitish centre or core, called by old Gerarde in his Herbal, 'the heart of Osmund the waterman.' My lore is insufficient to furnish my readers with the history of the said Osmund." (History of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... pale orange with centres of deep maroon, the wild galliardia, and the wild peony with its variegated leaves. Many other delicate blossoms which we cannot stop to describe are there too. And the ferns! All kinds may be found by the initiated, and many are close at hand. The fern lined with gold or with silver, the running ferns, the ferns of lace-like fineness, the ferns as soft as velvet, all growing in the greatest profusion. And each day of the week a ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... a greenhouse variety, bearing fern-like foliage. The seeds should be sown in slight ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... than the drive to Strathfield-saye, passing, as we do, through a great part of Heckfield Heath,* a tract of wild woodland, a forest, or rather a chase, full of fine sylvan beauty—thickets of fern and holly, and hawthorn and birch, surmounted by oaks and beeches, and interspersed with lawny glades and deep pools, letting light into the picture. Nothing can be prettier than the approach to the duke's lodge. And the entrance to the demesne, through a deep dell dark ...
— The Lost Dahlia • Mary Russell Mitford
... of the earth in this climate is 48 degrees, those tender trees which will bear bending down, are easily secured from the frost by spreading them upon the ground, and covering them with straw or fern. This particularly suits fig-trees, as they easily bear bending to the ground, and are furnished with an acrid juice, which secures them from the depredations of insects; but are nevertheless liable to be eaten by mice. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... He had made a pretence to murder me with the same idea. But he didn't believe they were taken in. "There'll be warrants out before morning, if they ain't too shaken. But what were you doing in the business? The two Spaniards were lying in the fern looking on when you come blundering your clumsy nose in. If it hadn't been for Rooksby you might have——— Hullo, there!" he ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... blaze of sunshine and a bower of spring freshness and fragrance, for here Rose had let her fancy have free play, and each garland, fern, and flower had its meaning. Mac seemed to have been reading this sweet language of symbols, to have guessed why Charlie's little picture was framed in white roses, why pansies hung about his own, why Psyche was half hidden among feathery sprays of maidenhair, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... recollection of life. I was barely three. I can remember the majestic gum-trees surrounding us, the sun glinting on their straight white trunks, and falling on the gurgling fern-banked stream, which disappeared beneath a steep scrubby hill on our left. It was an hour past noon on a long clear summer day. We were on a distant part of the run, where my father had come to deposit salt. He had left home ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a fern (Marattia fraxinea, Smith) with a large part edible, sc. the basal scales of the frond. Called also ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... a whole pile of such shiners."— "It is the Evil One!" exclaimed Petro: "Give them here! I'm ready for anything!" They struck hands upon it. "See here, Petro, you are ripe just in time: to-morrow is St. John the Baptist's day. Only on this one night in the year does the fern blossom. Delay not. I will await thee at midnight ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... yards behind, almost went to sleep in his saddle, so dragging was the tread the mare must follow. The dark aisle of the forest led presently through a gorge where the woods were in effect primeval. Upon the one hand rose a bank, thick with delicate moss and fern and shaded by birch and ash; on the other the ravine fell precipitously to hidden water, and was choked by towering pine and hemlock. The air was heavy, cool, and dank, the sunshine entering sparsely. The place was, however, a haunt of ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... of the place, Whose green, wild margin now no more erase Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep Prisoned in marble—bubbling from the base Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap The rill runs o'er—and round, fern, flowers, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... out of the ground, huge fern-like plants with crimson scaled trunks. Toward a clump ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a collection of fossils—tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone with the print of birds' claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief. These were the keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... smell, not so fine an odor as the Bible, but so delectable that I loved to bury my nose in its opened pages. What caused this odor I cannot tell—perhaps it had been used to press flowers or sprigs of sweet fern. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... and lunched on a green bank among the fern, under some old oaks. The sunlight fell among the glades; a flock of tits, chirruping and hunting, rushed past them and plunged downward into the wood. They could hear a dove in the high trees near them, crooning a song of peace and infinite content. Mr. Sandys, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Sounds of labor not far off told that camp was being built. Presently the absent five returned, two of the Mayorunas carrying a crude but strong litter constructed from saplings and giant-fern leaves. McKay rose ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... assembled over-night in a Highland glen, consisting of sportsmen, deer-stalkers, a piper and two deer-hounds, cooking their supper, and concluding it with the never-failing accompaniment of whisky-toddy. Let us fancy them reposing on a couch of dried fern and heather, and being awoke in the morning with the lively air of "Hey, Johnny Cope." While their breakfast is preparing, they wash and refresh themselves at a pure mountain stream, and are soon ready to issue forth with Buskar and ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... of "The Five-Mile Point."—where Deerslayer gave himself up to merciless Indian justice at the Huron Camp, and later was rescued by British regulars—is the rocky gorge, Mohican Glen, through which a purling brook ripples by its stone-rift banks thatched with great clumps of rose and fern. From the gravel-strewn shore of Hutter's Point beyond, the eyes of Leatherstocking first fell upon the Glimmerglass, and impressed by its wonder and beauty he exclaimed: "This is grand! 't is solemn! 't is an edication of itself." Leaning on his rifle and gazing in every ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... creation, they would stare fashionably at the antlered heads which the great slow deer raised out of a forest of bracken that promised to autumn lovers such cover as was never seen before. And now and again, as the amorous perfume of chestnut flowers and of fern was drifted too near, one would say to the other: "My dear! What a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... him scurried a cotton-tail. A snake slid, hissing, out of sight under a jungle of fern. A butterfly, dull brown and ocher, settled upon a branch in the sunlight, where it began slowly opening ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... level with the coping, and the horseman can decipher their inscriptions in passing, at the risk of a twisted neck—the base of the churchyard wall is pierced with a low archway, festooned with toad-flax and fringed with the hart's-tongue fern. Within the archway bubbles a well, the water of which was once used for all baptisms in the parish, for no child sprinkled with it could ever be hanged with hemp. But this belief is discredited now, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... park, studded with stately trees; here and there an avenue of Spanish chestnuts or a grove of oaks; sometimes a gorsy dell, and sometimes a so great spread of antlered fern, taller than ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... a little patch of garden ground with a brier hedge all round it, in that byway which lies between Laeken and Brussels, in the heart of flat, green Brabant, where there are beautiful meadows and tall, flowering hedges, and forest trees, and fern-filled ditches, and a little piece of water, deep and cool, where the swans sail all day long, and the silvery willows dip and sway with ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... shift a numbing muscle of his lean old body, in all the constraint of a standing posture, he was held in the flexure of the rock like some of its fossils,—as unsuspected as a ganoid of the days of eld that had once been imprisoned thus in the sediment of seas that had long ebbed hence,—or the fern vestiges in a later formation finding a witness in the imprint in the stone of the symmetry of its fronds. He listened to the hue and cry for him; then to the sudden tramp of hoofs as a pursuing party went out to overtake him, presumably on his way ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... feet long and six inches in width, pointed to the higher plant world that was to come. Between these gaunt towering trunks the graceful tree-ferns spread their canopies at heights of twenty, forty, and even sixty feet from the ground, and at the base was a dense undergrowth of ferns and fern-like seed-plants. Mosses may have carpeted the moist ground, but nothing in the nature of grass or flowers had ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... generalization. In the first stratified rocks in which any organic remains are found, the highest animals are fishes, and the highest plants are cryptogams; in the middle periods reptiles come in, accompanied by fern and moss forests; in later times quadrupeds are introduced, with a dicotyledonous vegetation. So closely does the march of animal and vegetable life keep pace with the material progress of the world, that we may well consider these three divisions, included under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... down before him, and he promptly dipped a fern root into it; then started back with a cry ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... and the poisonous growth of great water-plants, and the parasite twining of honeysuckle and briony. In one of these rambles he discovered a red earth which he made into a pigment, and he found in the unctuous juice of a certain fern an ingredient which he thought made his black ink still more glossy. His book was written all in symbols, and in the same spirit of symbolism he decorated it, causing wonderful foliage to creep about the text, and showing ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... that Mrs. Lyman says is too true," thought Willy, taking a piece of chalk out of his pocket, and drawing a profile of Miss Judkins on the door-sill, while that young lady tripped along the road, brushing the golden-rod and sweet-fern with the skirt ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... by the old oak tree, Where waters ripple over clean white stones, And cresses, mint with feathered fern grown high. In such a place the peaceful thoughts will come; There is no hurry there where nature plays. Soft gentle breezes wave the grass and sedge; White fluffy clouds pass overhead and roll. Now dreaming, I ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... flame of oxygen, they paved the way for the more symmetrical life of those who should follow. If our lungs find in the atmosphere the aliment they need, it is thanks to the inconceivably incoherent forests of arborescent fern. We owe our brains and nerves of to-day to fearful hordes of swimming or flying reptiles. These obeyed the order of their life. They did what they had to do. They modified matter in the fashion prescribed to them. And we, by carrying particles of this same matter to ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... culinary vegetable. The tender shoots are likewise eaten. The stem is short and knobby, the lower part of each branch (if branches they may be called) prickly, and the blossom yellow. The term paku, applied to it by the Malays, shows that they consider it as partaking of the nature of the fern (filix) and Rumphius, who names it Sayor calappa and Olus calappoides, describes it as an arborescent species of osmunda. It is well depicted in ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... believe what strange bugbears Mankind creates itself of fears That spring like fern, that insect weed, Equivocally, without seed; And have no possible foundation, 5 But merely in th' imagination; And yet can do more dreadful feats Than hags, with all their imps and teats Make more bewitch and haunt themselves Than all their nurseries ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... a perfect place, old as the hills that surround it, and wild in its loveliness. To right and left great trees, gnarled and moss-grown, and dipping tangles of blackberry and fern; patches of sunlight, amidst the gloom, that rests lovingly upon a glowing wilderness of late bluebells, and, beyond all these broad glimpses of the glorious, restless ocean, as it sleeps in its ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... me little pleasure. I miss the deer; and when the first park that one ever knew was Buxted, with its moving antlers above the brake fern, one almost is compelled to withhold the word park from any enclosure without them. It is impossible to lose the feeling that the right place for cattle—even for Alderneys—is the meadow. Cows in a ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... in my new quarters above five minutes when two elderly women entered, each bearing upon her head a large bundle of dry fern, which they cast down in one of the two corners of the hut most distant from the door and proceeded to spread there in such a fashion as to form a most comfortable bed, upon which I at once flung myself, for I was very weary. But before I could compose myself ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... am afraid I am too matter-of-fact to sympathise very clearly with this form of aestheticism; but here is a charming bit of forest scenery. Look at that old oak with the deer under it; the long and deep range of fern running up from it to that beech-grove on the upland, the lights and shadows on the projections and recesses of the wood, and the blaze of foxglove in its foreground. It is a place in which a poet might look for a ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... like two strangers, they walked silently side by side, and looked now and then at the collection of flowers and plants. Iris noticed a delicate fern which had fallen away from the support to which it had been attached. She stopped, and occupied herself in restoring it to its place. When she looked round again, after attending to the plant, her husband had disappeared, and Mr. Vimpany was ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... little spring had lost its way Amid the grass and fern; A passing stranger scooped a well Where weary men might turn; He walled it in, and hung with care A ladle at the brink; He thought not of the deed he did, But judged that Toil might drink. He passed again; and lo! the well, By summer never ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... with the ardent pursuits of boyhood, had been over-indulgent in the matter of granting whole Wednesdays, instead of half-holidays. Any excuse sufficed. Skating on inland ponds in the winter; fishing in the bay, as the year wore on; and, latterly, digging for primrose or fern roots in Brattlesby Woods. But Philip Price was beginning to find out by results that too much play and not enough work was making dull scholars of his pupils, and he had determined to stand out firmly ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... stood by herself, while the others laughed, chattered, and flew about like gauzy butterflies. The hard, bitter feeling was getting pretty bad, when the maid brought in a box of flowers. Before she could speak, Annie had the cover off, and all were exclaiming at the lovely roses, heath, and fern within. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... boy?" she cried. "They shall never see me hoist signals of distress. We must all die, and the secret of the thing is to die game, by Jove! Did you ever hear of Laura Fern? a superb girl! handsomer than your humble servant—if you'll believe it—a 'Miss' in the bargain, and as a consequence, I suppose, a much greater rake. She was in the hunting-field. Her horse threw her, and she fell plump on a stake. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... them three hundred feet long, on the second story. In this garden, which is perhaps a hundred feet square by forty in height, rise clumps of Italian cypress and laurel from beds of emerald turf and blooming hyacinths. In the centre a fountain showers over fern-covered rocks, and the gravel-walks around the border are shaded by tall camellia-trees in white and crimson bloom. Lamps of frosted glass hang among the foliage, and diffuse a mellow golden moonlight over the enchanted ground. The corridor adjoining the garden ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... upright scars visible as far as Fife, and Allermuir the tallest on this side: with wood and tilled field running high up on their borders, and haunches all moulded into innumerable glens and shelvings and variegated with heather and fern. The air comes briskly and sweetly off the hills, pure from the elevation, and rustically scented by the upland plants; and even at the toll, you may hear the curlew calling on its mate. At certain seasons, when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very steep and rugged, leaving, in the interspaces, very large valleys, and gently-rising grounds about their sides. These hills, though of a rocky disposition, are, in general, covered, almost to their tops, with trees; but the lower parts, on the sides, frequently only with fern. At the bottom of the harbour, where we lay, the ground rises gently to the foot of the hills, which run across nearly in the middle of the island; but its flat border, on each side, at a very small ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... her face away, stooping to pluck the withered frond of a fern that grew in the path. When she looked up at him again all the bloom ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... that her step-father knew almost as much about birds and squirrels as Miss Brent did about flowers, was not to be appeased till Amherst had scrambled into the pony-cart, wedging his long legs between a fern-box and a lunch-basket, and balancing a Scotch terrier's telescopic body ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... "the bridge" as we approach our first port. A great white rock juts up in the bay like a fragment of some Titan's fortress; a lighthouse stares out to sea from a cliff at the harbour's entrance; the tall cocoa palms wave their fern leaves in the blinding sunshine, and red-roofed houses huddle below the dome of the Cathedral rising white ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... could obtain it. The difficulty was to find shade, as the sun was beating down with intense heat on the sand, though while they were in exercise they did not think of it. The palm trees afforded but a scant shelter; however, by going a little way inland they obtained some enormous fern-leaves, with which they quickly built several huts, sufficient to shelter all the party, with the exception of two, who were stationed on the top of the bank to keep watch; Green deeming it prudent not to run any risk of being caught napping. It fell to the lot of Archie and ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... and spear and bended bow, In osiers pale and copses low; It seemed as if their mother Earth Had swallowed up her warlike birth. The wind's last breath had tossed in air Pennon and plaid and plumage fair,— The next but swept a lone hill-side Where heath and fern were waving wide: The sun's last glance was glinted back From spear and glaive, from targe and jack,— The next, all unreflected, shone On bracken green and cold ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... invade the roots; stony and rocky grounds, ivy, and all climbers, weeds, suckers, fern, wet, mice, moles, winds, &c. to these may be added siderations, pestiferous air, fogs, excessive heat, sulphurous and arsenic smoak, and vapours, and other plagues, tumours, distortions, lacrymations, tophi, gouts, carbuncles, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... farm was not so large or rambling as to tire the mind or foot, yet wide enough and full of change—rich pasture, hazel copse, green valleys, fallows brown, and golden breast-lands pillowing into nooks of fern, clumps of shade for horse or heifer, and for rabbits sandy warren, furzy cleve for hare and partridge, not without a little mere for willows and for wild-ducks. And the whole of the land, with a general slope of liveliness ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... compacted mass of stones, are often formed by two exterior surfaces of stone, filled up with earth in the middle, which makes them very warm. The roof is generally bad. They are thatched, sometimes with straw, sometimes with heath, sometimes with fern. The thatch is secured by ropes of straw, or of heath; and, to fix the ropes, there is a stone tied to the end of each. These stones hang round the bottom of the roof, and make it look like a lady's hair in papers; but I should think ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... and certain facts of mountain scenery never but by them expressed, as, for instance, the stillness and depth of the mountain tarns, with the reversed imagery of their darkness signed across by the soft lines of faintly touching winds; the solemn flush of the brown fern and glowing heath under evening light; the purple mass of mountains far removed, seen against clear still twilight. With equal gratitude I look to the drawings of David Cox, which, in spite of their loose and seemingly careless execution, are not less serious ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... started from Green River to visit her, she was out in the pasture trying to fill her pail with blueberries. All the sunlight seemed to centre on her black figure like a burning-glass; the thick growth of sweet-fern around the blueberry bushes sent a hot and stifling aroma into her face; the wild flowers hung limply, like delicate painted rags, and the rocks were like furnaces. Mrs. Field went out soon after dinner, ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... made for himself a bed of fern and hay in the stable of the ox and the ass, and lay close to them for warmth. And, lo! in the middle of the night the ass brayed and the ox bellowed, and Hilarion ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... on the centerpiece or the futile doily, but absurd little dresses with sleeves that she measured to the length of her hand, and yokes cut out to the pattern of a playing card, and all fretted over with feather-stitching that was frailer than maidenhair fern and must have cost many an eye-ache, which, because of its source, was easy ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... General Wemyss, on behalf of the Prince, and Messrs. Dray & Co. of Swan-lane, the agents for Mr. Hussey. The spot selected for the trial was behind the statue of George III, at the end of the Long Walk, fern—of which there is an abundance in that locality—being the article on which the machine had to operate. The Prince having from an early hour in the morning been engaged in shooting in the vicinity of the statue, at ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... be Its own exceeding great reward! No thoughts to vex in all I see, No jeers to bear or disregard;— All creatures and inanimate things Shall be my tutors; I shall learn From beast, and fish, and bird with wings, And rock, and stream, and tree, and fern." ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt |
